I’ve just read Chris Horn‘s article entitled “The Long Tail Wags” which was inspired by a recent conference I participated in. His post describes how commercial organisations can benefit from and add value to the global Web 2.0-using community.

There are some interesting observations on risks and opportunities associated with the large quantities of user-generated data (their activities, profiles, click histories, etc.) that are in the possession of various Internet-based and telecommunications-focused companies.

Another part of the article discusses both the usefulness and limitations of tagging, and describes a move towards allowing people to explicitly define and share their own collections of objects and interests.

About the SIOC project, a Semantic Web initiative to connect users and content in online community sites, Chris says: “The SIOC project at DERI in Galway underlines the benefits, and business consequences, of seamless federation of online communities.”

You can read more at chrishornat.blogspot.com/2007/10/long-tail-wags.html.